


Good Boy

by Project0506



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2228760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is turned into a dog.  Clint goes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Boy

**Author's Note:**

> So it’s been a while since I’ve seen any ‘Clint gets turned into some sort of bird/a corgi and there are Phil feels’ so I’ve decided to write my own. And possibly ended up ruining it for everyone. Cheers! Angst ahoy. No happy ending.
> 
> Done in approximately 20 minutes, not beta-read.

The woman smells wrong.  She smells like thunder and frightening things and she’s smiling but her teeth say ‘threat’ and Clint knows, knows, knows that she doesn’t mean him good things.  She smells (of lightning and green and smugness and honey-sweet ‘obey’ and Clint will not, will _never_ again).  He bites and she smells of blood and anger and he runs.

His legs don’t work the way they should.  It’s a thought he’s not sure the reason behind.  He does not understand what came before the burnheatpain _won’tobey_ but it takes several long moments before he gets each of his legs working in tandem and he wriggles out of the heavy blanket (pants, those are pants, those were mine) and disappears down an alleyway.  There are shouts, far away and familiar, but they’re wrapped up in too loud, too bright, too _much_ and he leaves them behind too.

(He’s always been good at disappearing.)

He eats when he’s hungry.  There is a fountain of food to be found in his height and he knows how to find it.  He sleeps when he’s tired, places for naps even more abundant than food.  Never long, no.  Just take what you need, don’t dawdle.  A litany of stay low, stay fast, don’t make eye contact, don’t be noticed pulls him from corner to corner, slinking past notice and down familiar-but-not streets.  He doesn’t know this smell.  He doesn’t smell himself here so he can’t have been here before.  But he knows this place and knows he isn’t safe.  He knows he needs to go home.

Home is an idea, a scent he can’t quite catch but can follow anyway.  It’s a memory outside of a dry cleaners (suits, so dark you’d think them black, interchangeable unless you had Clint’s eyes).  It’s an impression of quiet black shoes and a smile just almost there.  It’s a ‘Barton talk to me’ that means ‘Good Boy’ and eyes that light up when Clint fetches sweets.

It’s a homing beacon for Clint’s instincts.  He wouldn’t have been able to ignore it if he wanted to.

It’s easy and not.  Clint knows this place but the perspective imaging on his eyes isn’t the one mapped in his head and his brain throbs a giant pulse of pain through his ears.  He doesn’t whimper, good boys are quiet (no chatter on the comms!) and he doesn’t sway (he’s a steady hand, without that he is nothing) but it takes a moment, huddled in the shadow of a pillar before moving forward doesn’t hurt.

Grates are harder to get to but easier to get through and the moment the first burst of wind (ventilation system cycle 6.25 minutes, move through occupied room during air drain, average 1.8 minutes) comes barreling through the shaft it brings with it _home_ and _safe_ and _Phil!_

His body remembers how to track, though his feet frequently get in the way, and he follows the scent with a single-minded determination.  He passes over the cafeteria, cuts through medical, does a detour through the budget office and with each step _Phil!_ gets stronger.  He chases it.  Stealth is forgotten, tactics discarded, pressed out of his mind in favor of _homehomehomehomePHIL!_

There is open sky and wind being whipped up by propellers.  The pressure is hammering against Clint’s head but his legs don’t stop moving because there, framed in a door that’s rapidly closing, tie whipping through the wind like a snake is _Phil!_

Clint jumps.  He’s not very good at it and his feet go in different directions and he knows, before landing, that it’s his stomach that will smack down first.  He’s not very good but he’s _good_ _enough_ that when the big black door closes and cuts off the sound of whirring blades he’s on the side with _Phil_! 

“ _Phil!_ ” He barks, and struggles to get his feet together to leap again.  “ _Phil!_ ”

There is a curse, someone yells _Jesus_ and there is a whirr that sounds _bad_ and a hit-but-not that slams into his side.

When Clint lands it’s again on his stomach and the edges of his sight are grey.

“A.C. is that a –“

“I thought it was _attacking_ –”

He lands short.  He’s a half a yard away and he can’t look up, can’t make his head obey him.  It’s too heavy to lift and getting heavier.  He sees the shoes from his memory but they’re too far away and he stretches and stretches but he can’t reach.

 _“I was a good boy,_ ” he swears, and his stub of a tail thumps against the metal floor.  _“I was I promise.  Phil!”_

 

* * *

Clint wakes up human.

Natasha is there, watching, not judging.  He doesn’t need her to tell him that Amora had cast a spell on him during the battle.  Doesn’t need her to tell him that he had left the field and broken into SHIELD offices.  He doesn’t need her to tell him that he ran roughshod through the vents, tore across the helipad before vanishing inside again.  She does anyway.

She doesn’t need to ask why he broke into Phil Coulson’s sealed office and fell asleep.  She doesn’t, and he’s grateful for it.

She gives him clothes and food and water, tells him he needs to go to medical and doesn’t press when he refuses.  (He loves her, a little.  Sometimes he wishes he could love her more.)  She doesn’t make him get out from under Phil Coulson’s desk.  And she doesn’t say anything when Clint doesn’t cry.

* * *

 

Good boys aren’t weak.


End file.
